A crisis in confidence in China's food industry emerged after melamine was found in domestically produced baby formula in 2008. The scandal sickened 300,000 babies and resulted in six premature deaths. Other stories of fake eggs, diseased pork, recycled oil, mislabelled meat and more have only led to more calls for industry reform.

Meat skewers sold in Guizhou province. Findings on cases of counterfeit meat sold across China have attracted attention in recent months. Photo: AFP

An incident of poisoning in Beijing has been traced to yangrou chuanr, the ubiquitous lamb skewers sold on streets, in what could be more proof that rat, dog and cat meat are being widely used among street hawkers.

Beijing hospital No 307, which is affiliated with the Academy of Military Medical Sciences of the People's Liberation Army, found traces of bromadiolone in a blood sample of a 20-year-old tourist from northeastern China.

Doctors believe the tourist ingested the widely used rat poison during an evening of drinks and lamb skewers with his parents and girlfriend at a Beijing roadside food stand, the Beijing Evening News reported on Monday.

The patient's back and ankles were covered with bruises the size of a sheet of paper, doctors said.

The poisoning case comes two months after the nation's Ministry of Public Security released its findings of counterfeit-meat sales throughout China.

The inquiries showed that rat, fox and mink meat had been sold as lamb at Shanghai hotpot restaurants and that duck meat was used for Inner Mongolian beef jerky.

Last year, Dr Yu Ying - billed as China’s real-life answer to Dr House from the US television medical drama House and nicknamed “emergency room superwoman” - revealed a similar case of poisoning by rodenticides in meat skewers.

Netizens have called for a boycott and stricter inspections of street food hawkers, a measure likely to highlight the work of chengguan, or urban management officers, who are tasked with cracking down on illegal hawkers but are often accused of corruption and arbitrary violence.

it will be difficult even for the ruffian Chengguan to exercise control over the kind of meat used, or where the meat is from. Most of the cooking and/or meat procurement are done privately, and you can hardly expect any representatives to follow them 24/7. The only sure-fire way to protect oneself is to avoid consuming from these hawkers.

Camel Jul 23rd 20131:21pm

No, if the Chengguan act and try to stop the street hawker to operate it often ends up in a fighting and the hawker will be beaten down by the Chengguan.